"Be Glad Only Europe Got This"

Although Mortal Kombat was very popular in the US at the time when the home versions make their debut. Over in Europe it got very popular that even the old Sega Master System got a port of the first Mortal Kombat game. This mean that every other countries would never saw a SMS version of MK in their region, that doesn't mean they are missing much though.

Graphics:

It's funny that this game was ported only for Europe as this port was the weakest of all the home console ports. Why? Well for one thing it was an 8-Bit game ported to an 8-Bit console. What I mean is that this is not a port of the arcade game but a port of the Game Gear version of the first MK game. All you get are basically the same arenas, characters, and limitations of features found in the Game Gear port. The only improvements here over the handheld edition were that the perspective is more zoom-out and the character sprites are much smaller making the arena a tad bigger but even with that the game looks bland and empty compare to the rest of the other console ports. There are blood in the game too (via a blood code) but they are borrow from the handheld port and remains the same. The glitchy graphics, background flickery, and lack of special effects were all retained in this version as well and since the SMS lack a more colorful graphics palette, backgrounds and character models looks a tad outdated.

Music/Sounds:

They were all taken from the Game Gear port so they're nothing special. You get your 8-Bit sounds and music here but since all of them are pretty much just your regular bleep and bloop, you probably might want to tune them all the way down.

Control/Gameplay:

It's so confusing that it felt broken. Unlike the Game Gear's more smoother control, the SMS controller is terrible for playing this kind of game. For one you could hardly make an input here unless you play this on a Genesis/MegaDrive via the Power Base Adapter so you could use that controller instead which would render this game a bit more playable but since a lot of this will be done using the SMS controller, it's often difficult to initiate special moves and finishers. The gameplay aspect also suffer, blocking and attacking could end up becoming a hassle as there are no more than two buttons so the block button had to be share between a punch and the d-pad. Though the A.I. are still forgivable, trying to land a hit against them is like trying to hit a pinata blindfolded, it's just too much of a chore to take the plunge. If you're expecting this to be playable like all the other home versions, then you are dead wrong.

Replayability:

If you had never play the Game Gear port of this, then you will be awfully disappointed here as there are nothing to unlock in this game. You could try to replay the game over again using any of the six available fighters or you could play versus match against another player, a plus from the Game Gear version since you no longer had to link play with two copies of the same game using two of the same handheld but even with that, why bother when the superior Sega Genesis/MegaDrive port is already available out there?

Is it Worth Buying?

Not really, this is just another cash-in like all the rest, just another Game Gear title ported to SMS so to make some quick bucks on the MK phenomenon. If you want it as a collector's item then you can import it or find it at a flea market somewhere but for a better MK home version experience, I prefer the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive port over this any day.